Janae Ridgell
Professor Joe Hunt
English 098 July 21, 2013 Written Confessions In theory writing is portrayed as a mode of expression or creativity; as a way to guide others or maybe even oneself; although in reality when linked to a grade writing is nothing one imagines. My first true writing piece as a child was a valentine’s letter to my parents. I feel this may have been the very first time I as a writer had to express myself through paper. Granted it wasn’t a very difficult assignment but I struggled to find the right words to express myself. “How does one take an entire childhood of thoughts and memory’s and portray them on a piece of paper?” I reveled in the thought. I managed to complete the assignment by reiterating words like love and happy because I was taught those were the “right words” to say-I wonder “were those really my own thoughts at all?” Sometimes I wonder if writing class has made us to be a little artificial more or less like a Puppet. I use to be able to think for myself. If I ever had an idea or thought I’d just go with it, and to me that usually turned out great. Now I catch myself thinking and re-thinking the thought I just had. “Almost like completely revising what I say before it leaves my head” Truth is I was programmed from the start by our teachers to write and re-write my papers to make them better that it eventually became a second nature. “There is no great writing, only great re-writing.”-Justice Brandies. In school our writing is never great the first time around the saying was “There is always room for improvement.” A web, draft, final draft then the paper. Consider all the steps we have to take to improve our writing, when I think about them I think how far I am from my original thought. “A grape can only sit in the sun for so long until it becomes a raisin” I like to think this applies to writing also. How long can one write by the system before they forget how they use to write. Our writing class grade has always been dependent upon grammar and punctuation that as a writer I have never really excelled at. I like to think I do well on all my pieces but still I clam up at the thought of a teacher reading/judging my thoughts. It really is more personal than they let it on to be. I thought I did extremely well on a paper I turned in on the effects 9/11 had taken on me. Most of my generation was just shy of the age 7 when it happened. But I remembered going home that day and listening to my mom in front of the TV on the phone with my dad asking if he was okay. My dad was in the military up until my 8th grade graduation when he died in Iraq. So I wrote about the effects it had on him instead. I wrote about being in Jamaica and him being overseas in America fighting in a war we didn’t even start, and when tragedy’s like 9/11 happen how my mom would rush to the phone just to hope to hear my dad’s voice until one day she just didn’t. I turned in the paper and the next day it was on my desk with a C written in the right of the corner. I spent the whole day wondering where I went wrong I went over it more than once and it made perfect sense to me and was structured well so I thought. The next day the teacher went over our papers with us individually and she told me I was